Directed by Peter Yates and shot at Pinewood studios, THE DRESSER is an English drama from 1983 which picked up a quintet of Oscar nominations for Picture, Director, two Actors and Screenplay.
The world of THE DRESSER is the drab world of touring theatre folk doing their best to keep Northern England's mind off the 1940s Blitz by occupying it with the Bard. Sir (a near unrecognisable Albert Finney) is about to embark on his 227th performance as King Lear in a career spent too long on the road and too often in character. The strain of feigning insanity for a living has resulted in the on-stage madness becoming a characteristic of his off-stage personality. Sir's homosexual dresser Norman (Tom Courtenay) is only concerned with getting the old ham ready and onto the stage and excludes most other members of the company from entering their dressing room domain.
In the preliminary scenes, screenwriter Ronald Harwood does expand his own 1980 play beyond it's theatrical boundaries, especially in a sequence at a provincial railway station where Sir shouts a missed connecting train to a halt. Other than this, THE DRESSER is relentlessly a talking picture rather than a moving one (no bad thing). Here is the observance of theatrical behaviour, lives and ethics in a gloomy world a long way from the glamour of London's West End. Sir is is a haunted thespian who has been reduced to "old men, cripples and nancy boys" for his company. Finney's performance is one of unnerving agony, with a face suggesting a man who is near physical and mental collapse. He's backed up by some wonderful theatrical anecdotes, such as the recollection of seeing a rival's Lear: "I was pleasantly disappointed".
I found Courtenay's Norman too unrestrained, too overtly camp, but he is harrowing when grieving over the dead body of Sir - who has gone a performance too many. Norman's grief is that he's been omitted from Sir's memoirs.
The world of THE DRESSER is the drab world of touring theatre folk doing their best to keep Northern England's mind off the 1940s Blitz by occupying it with the Bard. Sir (a near unrecognisable Albert Finney) is about to embark on his 227th performance as King Lear in a career spent too long on the road and too often in character. The strain of feigning insanity for a living has resulted in the on-stage madness becoming a characteristic of his off-stage personality. Sir's homosexual dresser Norman (Tom Courtenay) is only concerned with getting the old ham ready and onto the stage and excludes most other members of the company from entering their dressing room domain.
In the preliminary scenes, screenwriter Ronald Harwood does expand his own 1980 play beyond it's theatrical boundaries, especially in a sequence at a provincial railway station where Sir shouts a missed connecting train to a halt. Other than this, THE DRESSER is relentlessly a talking picture rather than a moving one (no bad thing). Here is the observance of theatrical behaviour, lives and ethics in a gloomy world a long way from the glamour of London's West End. Sir is is a haunted thespian who has been reduced to "old men, cripples and nancy boys" for his company. Finney's performance is one of unnerving agony, with a face suggesting a man who is near physical and mental collapse. He's backed up by some wonderful theatrical anecdotes, such as the recollection of seeing a rival's Lear: "I was pleasantly disappointed".
I found Courtenay's Norman too unrestrained, too overtly camp, but he is harrowing when grieving over the dead body of Sir - who has gone a performance too many. Norman's grief is that he's been omitted from Sir's memoirs.